A lot of projects include multiple parts made from a single sheet of uniform material - like a sheet of plywood. This causes some trouble in a CAD/CAM application

You want to keep your overall model/assembly intact, but the build assembly isn't the same as the cutting layout.

You need to translate and rotate parts to maximize material usage

You want to group operations to minimize tool changes on the machine.

For a while, I've been promising that we would include a solution to this in FreeCAD Path and now we're finally getting to it thanks to facilities in the Arch workbench - Panels!

Arch Panels are designed for exactly this purpose - designing parts from uniform sheet stock. In Arch, you can define a panel object and then create a 'Panel Cut' to represent the 2D cut pattern for that part. These 2D cuts can then be aggregated into a 'Panel Sheet' for cutting.

Is that confusing? Then just watch the video. It'll make sense, trust me. And for good measure, we now have a post-processor for smoothieboard, an exporter for linuxcnc tooltables, and improved tool handling. So there ya go.